


Sticky Notes

by snowbunnylester (xrosepetalsx)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF), Video Blogging & YouTube RPF
Genre: M/M, negative comments, self-hate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 08:05:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2017353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xrosepetalsx/pseuds/snowbunnylester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Phil realizes Dan spends so much time in the bathroom telling himself off, he decides to take matters into his own hand’s and starts leaving Sticky Notes to cheer his best friend up. <b>TW: Self-Hate</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	Sticky Notes

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer** : In no way do I pretend that this is real or cast aspersions on Dan or Phil.
> 
> I have an exam due soon but then I read this prompt ([x](http://phanfic.tumblr.com/post/92724467207)) and I just had to write it. My exam will have to wait.
> 
> This was terribly hard to write in some places, because of the terribly nasty comments that litter it. Kudos keep me alive, and please be aware that I think none of these negative comments/thoughts are true in any way shape or form.
> 
> It even has [Fanart](http://theinsanityplays.tumblr.com/post/104874401745/hopelesslyhowell-this-isnt-v-good-but-hey) now! Thanks to [hopelesslyhowell](http://hopelesslyhowell.tumblr.com/)!

“You’re disgusting, look at yourself,” Dan says, glaring at his reflection in the mirror. “See that piece of flab hanging off your arm? That’s cellulite, _fat._ You’re a fat piece of shit, and no one will ever want you.” he growls, smacking the slight skin protruding from his arm.

“You’re never going to be attractive enough,” he says in a mocking voice, mind flicking back to the comments he’d been getting on YouTube lately. “No one’s ever going to love you.”

“Dan?” Phil calls hesitantly, and Dan freezes, fingers still pinching that little bit of pudge he can see on his stomach, straining his ears to listen carefully. How close is Phil? Has he heard everything Dan’s been saying for the last few minutes?

“Dan, are you almost ready?” Phil asks, and Dan lets out a sigh of relief because it sounds like Phil’s still in the lounge. There’s no way he’s heard what Dan’s been saying about himself.

“Yeah, just give me a sec!” he shouts back, and shoots one last glare at himself in the mirror before dressing quickly.

They’re out the door ten minutes later on their way to the radio show, Phil none the wiser and Dan secretly pleased with the beating he’s given himself.  

\--

“Why are you even trying anymore,” Dan asks himself quietly one night, fingers tight against the bathroom counter top. “Why don’t you just stop. No one likes you, and why would they?"

He presses his fingers into his side, hates how they sink into the fat there, and presses his nails in for good measure.

“You’re nothing Dan, absolutely nothing. A black mark on the pavement of humanity,” he spits.

He hears a bedroom door open, glances at the bathroom door to make sure it’s closed, and turns on the tap, splashes his face with water to quickly get rid of the angry red splotches on his face.

When he exits, he passes a disheveled looking Phil and flashes him a quick smile. He doesn’t think Phil buys it.

\--

“Hey Dan, you okay?” Phil asks a few days later.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?” he asks back, a bewildered look on his face.

“No reason,” Phil assures with a smile. “Just asking.”

Dan smiles back, chuckles a little for believability, and tells Phil, “All’s good,” with a little wink. His laptop screen glows hateful comments at his face and he tries not to let it show how much they’re affecting him.

“Alright,” Phil says with a nod and goes into the kitchen, asking Dan over his shoulder what he wants for dinner tonight, and Dan thinks _nothing, I don’t deserve to eat._

“Pasta,” he says instead.

He heads to the bathroom ten minutes later, the smell of oregano making him nauseous, and yanks his shirt over his head to glare at the pudge he knows he’ll find there.

Before he can say anything bad about himself, a blue sticky note attached to the mirror catches his attention.

 _You’re beautiful_ , it says.

Dan puts his shirt back on and goes back into the lounge.

\--

_Fag._

_Who the fuck is this emo kid?_

_Ur fats protruding_

_your not even funny, get off the internet!_

_Posh faggot, who the fuck you think you are?_

The list goes on. It’s endless, a spiral of hateful comments, all of which Dan has taken screenshots of and saved in a folder titled “video ideas.”

There’s a lot of positive one’s too, but the negative ones hurt the most, bounce around in his head day after day. He can’t make them go away, so he doesn’t try anymore, just packs them away neatly in a little folder he can look through when he’s feeling especially happy, because he knows he doesn’t deserve to.

_I hate you, Phil’s so much better than you!_

_Ur so ugly u make me want to barf_

_your ruiing phils career get out_

Dan goes into the bathroom again, prods at his face, grimacing at the spot of red high up on his cheekbone. He inspects his nose, frowning at how big it is, picks at his lips when he notices how chapped they’ve become again, rubs at the little bit of mustache that’s staring to grow in.

His teeth are yellow and gross, his face splotchy and red, his eyes the ugliest shade of brown Dan has ever seen, and his hair thin and limp.

“You’re hideous,” he mumbles to himself quietly. Then he notices the yellow sticky note high up on the mirror, and reaches up with shaking hands to pull it down.

_You deserve to be happy_

Dan crumbles it up into a little ball in his fist, throws it in the trash can because it’s a lie, _its a dirty fucking lie, I don’t deserve to be happy_ , and stomps out of the bathroom.

Later that night he goes back in, routes around in the trash can for a couple seconds until he finds the yellow sticky note, and carefully flattens it out on the dirty counter top until it’s almost perfect again. When he returns to his room, he places it in his beside drawer and goes to sleep.

\--

They go into the city for shopping and a few girls stop and chat with them, greeting them both with happy smiles and asking for hugs and selfies. Dan’s happy to do it, smiling cheekily with all of them, holding out the phone for them because he has long arms and they don’t.

A few times the girls don’t recognize Phil, just Dan, and Dan doesn’t know how he feels about that.

“Oh, my, God! It’s AmazingPhil!” someone shouts, and Dan and Phil turn around with identical grins on their faces. Then Dan notices they aren’t looking at him, are looking right through him, and his heart hurts. He stands awkwardly to the side until the girls are gone, and then flashes Phil a small smile when the other turns to him.

Phil’s face falls a bit, and Dan works harder to hide his pain.

When they get home that night, Phil begs Dan to make him some coffee and wonders off to his bedroom when Dan begrudgingly agrees. Dan rubs his eyes to hide the tears that are staring to fill them and thinks about how much it must hurt Phil every time this exact same thing happens to him.

“Phil, your coffee’s in the kitchen!” he shouts when the tears really start coming. “I’m not bringing it to you, I’m not your personal maid!” he continues as he rushes to the bathroom.

He slams the door behind him and collapses against the door, hugging his knee’s to his chest because being famous fucking _sucks_ and sometimes he just wants to quit.

Half an hour later he stands up, and that’s when he notices the green sticky note.

He peel’s it off the mirror carefully, and chuckles through his tears when he reads it.

_You’re the most important thing in my life, and I will never look right through you_

\--

The sticky notes continue every day from then on. Dan will roll out of bed at 2 in the afternoon and rub his eyes as he shuffles down the stairs on his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth, and every day he’ll find a different colored sticky note pressed to the mirror with a different message scrawled across it in Phil’s familiar messy handwriting.

_Your smile brightens my day_

_Every time you laugh, I laugh too_

_I hate when you’re in a bad mood, please cheer up!_

_There’s coffee in the kitchen for you xx_

_I ate all your cereal, sorry! At the market getting you some more_

_Nothing can make you sad unless you let it_

_It’s a new day, yesterday doesn’t matter_

_You’re perfect just the way you are_

Most of the time they make Dan smile, and he collects them all in a little tin he bought just for them that he places in his bedside table every morning. Most of the time they make Dan’s day, and he doesn’t find himself wondering into the bathroom to say horrid things to himself.

But some days, especially right after Dan has uploaded a new video, they don’t do anything but make Dan mad. He’ll crumple them into a little ball and throw them at the door and sit down and cry a little before he gets up, collects the little note, and takes it back to his room.

The folder of nasty comments still sits on his desktop and he still opens it from time to time, adding to his collection a little at time.

After waking up to a particularly nasty comment, Dan rips the most recent sticky note off the mirror and stomps downstairs.

“Just stop it with your stupid fucking notes, Phil! I don’t want them! They mean nothing and they’re just a waste of your time!” he shouts, and tosses the crumpled note in his hand at Phil’s head. The elder flinches, eyes wide and broken.

Dan can’t stand to look at him.

“They’re all a crock of shit anyway,” he mumbles, and he beats a hasty exit.

\--

They haven’t spoken in three days and the notes on the bathroom mirror have stopped showing up, but Dan feels like crap. He finds himself digging through his bedside drawer, fingers caressing each different colored note with tears on his cheeks, and wishes he didn’t have too much pride to apologize.

He thinks of Phil and how the elder has hidden away in his room the past few days and thinks _why did I have to make Phil feel like crap? He’s the one person who cares about me and I’ve done nothing but push him away_.

Dan shuffles out of bed and gets dressed, deciding to leave the apartment for a few hours for Phil’s sake, and slams the front door on his way out. He doesn’t want to have to face Phil and tell him that he’s going out, but he doesn’t want the other to not know he’s gone either.

He wonder’s around town for a few hours, takes a few selfies with some fans, but he knows even they can tell that he’s down. He gives them reassuring smiles when they ask, tells them that he’s just having another existential crisis, anything to get them to leave him alone, and they leave with understanding nods.

He doesn’t want to go home, doesn’t want to face his empty apartment, doesn’t want to accidentally run into Phil and see the other flinch away from him the way he has every time they’ve run into each other over the past couple of days, but when it starts getting dark, he knows he has too.

As he starts the trek back home, Dan think’s about how much he wants to apologize, but he doesn’t know how.

\--

When he finally returns home, Phil is nowhere to be found, so he drops his keys on the table in the lounge and heads to his bedroom.

He flips on his laptop, feeling like shit, and opens up the one folder he’d promised himself he’d get rid of but never did, having failed to ever find enough courage to do so. He plans on wrestling with himself in the bathroom again, no note on the mirror to stop him from beating himself up, but then he notices something strange.

All of his pictures are gone. Every single hate comment has been removed, the folder is empty, there’s no one’s voice there to yell at him and tell him how much of a shitty person he is. He panics, opening and closing the folder over and over again, checking the recycle bin for any traces of any of the screenshots he’d so painstakingly taken, but finds nothing.

He starts crying again, hand’s shaking because he literally has nothing left now, but then notices something strange on his desktop. He wipes his tears away and squints at his screen.

There’s a misplaced text file that says READ ME.

He opens it with shaking fingers, and smiles.

_I’m sorry, but I still think you’re perfect, and if you won’t accept any more sticky notes, then you can have this text post instead._

\--

Tentatively, Dan pushes Phil’s bedroom door open, and stands in the doorway awkwardly as he waits for Phil to notice him. When the elder finally does, he smiles at Dan and beckons him over, pushing his sticker laden MacBook off his lap. Dan wanders in, sitting on the very edge of Phil’s duvet, and hangs his head in shame.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

“I know,” Phil responds, and Dan looks up at him. Phil is smiling reassuringly at him, arms held open in invitation for a hug, and Dan accepts it gratefully, nuzzling into Phil’s chest and wrapping his arms around the other’s middle.

When he finally pulls away, he whispers “Thank you,” and really truly means it. “For everything,” he adds with a little chuckle, looking up at Phil’s face.

“No problem,” Phil says, and they settle into a companionable silence, Dan shifting around to get comfortable on Phil’s bed. When he rests his head against Phil’s shoulder, Phil wraps his arm around him and Dan sighs contentedly.

A half an hour later, Dan has started to drift off, but Phil is shifting around a lot more than normal and it’s starting to piss Dan off.

“What are you doing?” he finally asks irritably after 5 more minutes of this, and sits up, yawning around a frown.

“I just…here,” Phil says, thrusting a wadded up sticky note into Dan’s face. Dan stares at in confusion until he realizes it’s the sticky note he threw at Phil’s head three days ago, and carefully takes it from Phil’s hand.

“I realized this morning you probably never even read it,” Phil mutters. “So I figured I’d give it back to you so that you could.”

Dan chuckles and nods his head in agreement, but then he actually reads it and his heart starts beating erratically.

“Wh-what?” he asks shakily, looking up at Phil with wide eyes only to find Phil staring determinedly back. “I-you…do you mean it?”

Phil just nods, eyes steely as he waits for a reaction. Dan doesn’t even bother saying anything, just surges forward and presses their lips together hungrily, the sticky note falling out of his hand and onto the duvet beside them. He nips at Phil’s bottom lip until the other grants him entrance, then presses his tongue forward, moaning when Phil’s hands find their way to his hips.

The words  _I'm in love with you_  stare up at them.

When Dan finally pulls away, it’s with the realization that Phil had been avoiding him all this time because he’d thought Dan’s outburst was a rejection. His mouth pops open in a little o shape and Phil frowns at him.

“What?” he asks, “Was that bad?”

“No,” Dan assures him quickly. “Quite the opposite actually,” he says, and presses his lips against Phil’s once again.

\--

The next morning, Phil wakes up to a sticky note on his pillow, and he smiles.

_I’m in love with you too._

**Author's Note:**

> It’s so miserably hot that I struggled with the last 500 words for two hours. Also, if I re-read this thing one more time, it will never get posted, so please let me know if you find any mistakes.


End file.
